How to Open a Door
by Minutia R
Summary: After The Lives of Christopher Chant, Mordecai explains a few things to Flavian.  Mordecai/Flavian, for iphianassa.


It isn't until Flavian is exhausted and ready to collapse that he remembers: He warded his bedroom door in the morning, the way he always used to—because he couldn't bear to have the maids mucking up his papers—before leaving for the disastrous raid on the Wraith. And things have been so hectic ever since that he's been catching naps in chairs in odd corners rather than sleeping properly. And now that he finally has a chance to sleep in his own bed, he's locked out.

He goes and finds Mordecai, because he can hardly ask that girl from Ten—Millie—to do it, and asking Mordecai seems marginally less embarrassing than asking Gabriel or Christopher.

It takes a few minutes, because the two of them have such different styles—and, while Mordecai has no equal as a spirit traveller, he's not quite the magician that Flavian is. That Flavian was. The door swings open, and Flavian mumbles his thanks.

"Don't worry about it," says Mordecai cheerfully. "You should have seen everything I had to get open for Frederick Parkinson earlier. Now there's an inveterate locker of things." Then the humor vanishes from his face, like a blind being drawn across a bright window. "We'll get your magic back, you know. Everyone's. The Wraith isn't being very cooperative, but there are others in the organization who'll know what's been done with it, and who'll be more amenable to persuasion."

"Well," says Flavian. Dubiously, because experience has taught him that anything he wants this badly to be true probably isn't. "You would know."

"I—" Mordecai has gone grey, and looks like he's been punched in the stomach. "God, I'm sorry, Flavian." He ducks his head, and starts off down the corridor.

"Wait, I didn't mean—" says Flavian. "You kept Christopher safe and you brought Gabriel back, whatever else you did, you've made up for it, I shouldn't have said anything, don't leave."

"Why shouldn't you say it? It's true," says Mordecai. "But I'll stay, if you want me."

"You know I always have, Mordecai," says Flavian.

Mordecai's eyes meet his, dark and startled. Flavian barely has time to think, _I didn't just say that, did I? Oh hell, I think I just said that, _before Mordecai has him by the shoulders, and Flavian finds himself shoved into his bedroom, pressed up against the wall, and kissed very thoroughly.

It's several seconds before it occurs to Flavian to kiss Mordecai back, to put his arms around Mordecai and feel the rumpled fabric of his jacket beneath his hands, and the broad smooth muscles of his back beneath that. Another several seconds, and Flavian starts to remember why this is impossible and wrong, instead of better than getting his magic back and Christmas and a walk in the country on a lovely day put together.

Mordecai must feel the change in Flavian, because he ends the kiss, slowly. He crosses his arms and looks at Flavian with his head on one side, studied nonchalance belied by the intensity in his eyes.

"What," pants Flavian, "what about Rosalie?"

"Is that all?" says Mordecai. "Rosalie and I are friends."

"And all that stuff about 'my lovely young lady with the harp?'" says Flavian.

Mordecai shrugs. "It keeps the other girls off, doesn't it?" he says. "And Rosalie has always been game."

"Game," says Flavian. He is too tired to be having this conversation; he can't think what cricket has to do with it.

"Do you know what that big argument we had was about, just before I left for London?" says Mordecai.

"I figured—everyone figured you'd asked her to marry you," says Flavian. "And she'd said no."

Mordecai laughs, and it makes the most fascinating crinkles around his eyes. Flavian is finding it hard to concentrate on what Mordecai is saying. "It was about you. Rosalie wanted to know why I insisted on making both of us—you and me, that is—miserable, instead of doing something about it. She accused me of being—what was the word she used?—repressed; she'd been reading those books by that awful psychoanalyst fellow. I couldn't tell her the real reason, of course."

Flavian takes Mordecai's hands, because he still isn't sure he can. The warm, blunt fingers curl around his; apparently, he can; this is allowed. Flavian is suddenly angry. All those hints he's dropped, and Mordecai laughingly deflected. Every time he's helplessly watched Mordecai and Rosalie flirt, telling himself that if he really cared, he'd wish Mordecai luck. And now it was all lies? _We could have had this for years._ "And what was the real reason?" says Flavian.

"Flavian." Mordecai's fingers tighten; Flavian flinches, but Mordecai doesn't let go. "The Dright had my soul, right? I had to report everything I did to his agents. Every," and now Mordecai does release Flavian's hands, and cups his face instead. "Little," Mordecai rests his forehead against Flavian's, smooth and cool. "Thing." Their lips meet, just for a moment, and Mordecai steps back. "_Now_ do you understand?"

Flavian doesn't, quite. It isn't that Mordecai hasn't explained himself clearly; it's just that Flavian is lightheaded, drunk on the taste of Mordecai on his lips, and the room seems suddenly colder now that Mordecai is standing a foot away instead of pressed up against him. So he says the first thing that comes into his head, which is: "But I'm rubbish at cricket."

"So you are," says Mordecai. "So I'll keep playing cricket with Rosalie. But I think I'll stick to kissing _you._"


End file.
